English Edition Nº 29

Pg. 3 | Analysis

As elections near in Venezuela, international media amp up hostility against the Chavez administration

FRIDAY  September 17th, 2010  No. 29  Bs. 1  Caracas

Pg. 8 | Opinion

John Pilger on Propaganda and War

ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas

Revolutionizing Lives in Venezuela New Programs for low-cost household appliances, railway systems, healthcare and economic growth are changing the nation

Urban Land Titles

The Venezuelan Government gave out six thousand urban land titles to residents of Latin America’s largest slum, Petare, this week, as part of an ongoing program of dignifying citizens who previously were denied basic rights. Despite claims the Chavez government violates private property rights, the program guaranteeing land titles to those with previously no documentation evidences the contrary.

Venezuela’s healthcare program, Barrio Adentro, has saved nearly 300,000 lives in the seven years since its founding, and has changed the lives of millions of others, who for the first time ever have received medical care. A new railway system being built across the nation expects to transform and restructure the country’s industries and overall quality of life. Recently, a UN report affirmed household inequality in Venezuela is the lowest in the region.

Economy

Bank of Venezuela Grows

After nationalization, the Banco de Venezuela has shown positive economic growth.

Politics

Winning the War on Drugs

Venezuela’s counter-narcotics efforts have improved exponentially this year.

Energy

Opec Turns 50

Venezuela celebrates regaining energy sovereignty and advancing integration amongst member states

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enezuelans are gearing up for legislative elections next Sunday, September 26, during which all 165 seats of the unicameral parliament are up for grabs.

The campaign will end at midnight on Thursday, September 23, per electoral regulations, which prohibit campaigning during the two days before elections.

Campaigns have been in full swing since late August, and polls indicate the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) will most likely have a sweeping victory, winning a solid majority of posts in the National Assembly.

The Final Stretch

A survey conducted by the pollster GIS XXI forecasted this week that about 68% of registered voters would participate in the upcoming parliamentarian elections. During the last legislative elections in 2005, opposition parties boycotted at the last minute and participation was below 30%.

Generally, Venezuelan voters come out in high numbers. In the last presidential elections in 2006, over 80% of voters participated.

The GIS XXI poll indicated over 70% of Venezuelans consider the National Assembly as an important institution and that this electoral

process will be more important than previous elections in 2005.

According to the voting intention of Venezuelans expressed in the survey, the PSUV-PCV (PSUV and Venezuelan Communist Party) alliance would obtain the twothirds majority in the National Assembly necessary to ensure easy passage of legislation favorable to the Revolution.

“The opposition will win in the states of Zulia, Tachira, Nueva Esparta and Miranda, while the remaining 20 states will favor the alliance PSUV-PCV”, stated the poll.

Stay tuned.

Venezuelan cocoa triumphs in London

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enezuelan cocoa has been awarded 95% certified purity by the International Organization of Cocoa (ICCO). The new classification was confirmed at an ICCO conference last week to revise each country’s export percentages denoting the purity of fine aromatic cocoa.

Venezuela was represented by a delegation from the Bolivarian government, which underlined the government’s efforts to continue to improve Venezuelan cocoa. The delegation highlighted that Venezuelan agricultural policy, in this case the policies involving the cocoa sector, is a key element of food security.

The government’s efforts managed to increase the percentage of certified purity of fine aromatic cocoa from 75% to 95%, categorically showing that socialism does give tangible quality results and that social organizations and socialist enterprises produce products that have a high world demand.

Figures from scientific studies carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture and Land and the Ministry of Science and Technology were released showing the efforts made by various state organizations to improve the quality of Venezuelan fine aromatic cocoa. The achievement is of great importance, as it restores the international market’s confidence in Venezuelan cocoa and increases the price and prestige of this product internationally.

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IMPACT

The artillery of ideas

Venezuela: Revolution saving and changing lives During a series of different activities on Wednesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed important bills into law, met with electrical workers pledging to protect the industry from “sabotage”, and delivered credits to low-income familes for home appliances

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t a cabinet meeting from the Miraflores Presidential Palace, the Venezuelan head of state lauded the healthcare program, Barrio Adentro, implemented seven years ago through an agreement with Cuba. “By the end of August, more than 432 million consultations have been conducted in the Barrio Adentro I modules”, affirmed President Chavez, adding, “I don’t think there has ever been a case like this in world history…More than 294,000 lives have been saved thanks to Mission Barrio Adentro”.

“This isn’t a metaphor”, affirmed the Venezuelan President. “If these people hadn’t received treatment, they would have died”.

During the cabinet meeting, which was broadcast on live national television for several hours, Chavez announced that Barrio Adentro II, a more advanced stage of the program, has built 28 High Technology Centers (CAT), 598 Integral Diagnostic Centers (CDI) and 556 Integral Rehabilitation Clinics, all providing free, universal healthcare.

“In the CDIs, they have conducted 50 million consulations.

Of these, 1.8 million have been for vital needs, and of those, 357,000 received intensive therapy”, he stated.

The program has also provided 372 million exams, X-rays, laboratory procedures, endoscopies, ultrasounds, cat scans, MRIs and other advanced treatments, all for free.

RAILWAYS During the cabinet meeting on Wednesday, President Chavez also discussed the railway system his government is building nationwide. “The Caracas-Cua Railway revolutionizes. It is a revolution,

a revolution of time, of space. It’s a profound revolution and vital for improving our way of life”, he underscored, while talking about how the railway system will provide a solution for those who live along or close to the route.

Cua is a residential town about 2 hours from Caracas in a car. On the train, it will take less than 20 minutes to go between the two cities.

Chavez emphasized that the railway system is one of the most important achievements of the Revolution and will substantially benefit Venezuelans by providing greater and easier access to regions outside of the capital. He also informed that the CaracasCua train is the first stage of a project with “great dimensions” that will stretch across the nation.

Residential communities will also be built along the routes.

“The idea is to provide affordable and quality housing for those living now in the slums, the barrios. This way, they can live outside the city in a nice home, and take the train to work. It will change the lives of millions of Venezuelans”, announced the Venezuelan President.

ANTI-DRUG LAW On Wednesday, President Chavez also signed into law the new Anti-Drug Bill, a reform from a prior law against illicit substances.

Minister for Interior and Justice, Tareck El Aissami, explained important new aspects of the law,

“This reform creates a national service to handle and sell the assets confiscated from illegal narcotics transactions; it creates special courts to process drug-related crimes; it increases funds and the capacity of rehabilitation and treatment programs for drug addicts and helps those who are also addicted to pharmaceuticals, and it increases penalties for drugrelated crimes as well”.

President Chavez lauded the new law and added, “This legal instrument must be implemented and we must do everything possible to combat the plague of drug-trafficking and consumption affecting our nation”.

Venezuela suffers from drugrelated crimes spilling over the border from Colombia, the largest drug-producing nation in the world. In recent years, despite criticisms from the United States, Venezuela has dramatically improved counter-narcotics efforts and has increased initiatives to combat the drug war.

AGAINST ELECTRICAL SABOTAGE Late Wednesday afternoon, the Venezuelan President met with workers from the electrical sector, in a campaign event that also was a showing of support for the Chavez administration.

In recent weeks, the nation’s electricity industry has been subject to several acts of vandalism and sabotage. More than three thousand workers from the industry participated in Wednesday’s event to express their deter-

mination to protect the electrical infrastructure from further destabilization attempts.

“No to sabotage”, exclaimed the multitudes of workers, the majority of whom also belong to unions. Head of Fetraelec, the main electrical workers union, Angel Navas, declared, “We will work day and night to make sure the electrical industry advances.

We know this is in the greater interests of the nation and we must protect the industry”.

At the event, Minister for Electrical Energy Ali Rodriguez Araque also expressed the important role workers have played in the development and improved quality of service. “Now we can handle any problem that arises, because we have workers dedicated and committed to the industry”.

President Chavez congratulated the union leaders for uniting the workers in the industry and announced that any contractors will be incorporated progressively into full-time positions. “So far more than two thousand contractors have been given full-time jobs with benefits in the industry, and there are still about five thousand left. We have to speed up their inclusion so they too can have job security”.

ECONOMIC STRENGTH Finally, during a late evening event at the Presidential Palace, the Venezuelan leader gave out credits for home appliances to low-income families and women

that form part of the program, Mothers of the Neighborhood, which provides job training, education and stipends for mothers with little or no income.

While launching the program, My Well-Equipped Home (Mi Casa Bien Equipada), which provides affordable home appliances on low-interest credit to households in need, President Chavez praised Venezuela’s economic advances.

“A United Nations official has said that Venezuela is one of the countries with the best distribution of household income in Latin America”, he announced, adding, “Per the statistics, in Venezuela and Uruguay the richest 10% of the population earn 8 times more than the poorest 40% of the nation, while in other nations it’s more than 16 times more”.

President Chavez was referring to a report from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) produced by economist Alfredo Calcaño.

“As the Bolivarian Revolution continues to advance, the gap will continue to decrease, until Venezuela reaches a point of equality”, affirmed Chavez.

“Imagine if in Venezuela capitalism was still in power. It would be an absolute disaster, the biggest in our history. I think we would have had a civil war”, said the Venezuelan President, also pointing out, “The opposition accuses me of giving away money to other countries. They call me Mr. Gift Man because of our agreements with Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and other sister nations. But when they were in power, our oil was being given away to the United States at $7 barrel. And, they paid no royalties or taxes on the profits they took from our oil!”

“Since we came to power, we worked to renegotiate with OPEC our oil prices, and today, oil is at $70 a barrel. So we use our profits for social programs, national development, and the health and prosperity of our people. They were the ones who gave away our money, and squandered it on their own corrupt ways”, explained President Chavez.

“They will never return to govern again here, never”.

T/ EG P/ Presidential Press

The artillery of ideas

ANALYSIS

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US media intensifies campaign against Chavez

As election time approaches in Venezuela, international media increase negative coverage of the South American nation. CNN applauds terrorism against Venezuela, while Fox News accuses the Chavez government of terrorism

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he bombardment of negative, false, distorted and manipulated news about Venezuela in US media has increased in volume and intensity during the last few days. Venezuela is subjected to this phenomenon every time an electoral process nears. This international media campaign against the government of Hugo Chavez appears to have a clear and coordinated objective: removing the Venezuelan President from power.

During the last eight years, those pursuing this same objective have promoted, and attempted to justify, coup d’etats, economic sabotages, terrorist acts, assassination attempts, electoral interventions, psychological warfare and a disproportionate increase in US military presence in the region – all with the goal of ousting President Chavez.

And to achieve this objective – which every year seems attainable to the powers that be – millions and millions of US taxpayer dollars are channeled by US agencies into political parties, campaigns, candidates and organizations that oppose Chavez.

International media also do their part.

With sensationalist headlines and slanted reports, mass media try to condition public opinion to believe any action or aggression against Venezuela will be necessary to remove the “evil” Chavez from power.

According to The Economist, “Venezuela has the worst economy in the world”, despite the fact the data cited by the financial magazine doesn’t match up. The New York Times, which sets the news standard for press worldwide, erroneously and dangerously headlined two weeks ago, “Venezuela is more lethal than Iraq”.

“Venezuela has the highest homicide rate in the hemisphere”, claimed Newsweek, falsely adding, “Chavez’s popularity has fallen off a cliff”.

To these media, it doesn’t matter that Venezuela’s economy is actually on an upward rise, despite the world financial crisis, or that while Caracas certainly has crime – and homicides – there is absolutely no comparison to the millions killed in Iraq at the hands of the US war machine.

And if a 54% popularity rate (per the latest national polls) means President Chavez’s popularity has “fallen off a cliff”, well then, where does that put President Obama’s “best” rate at 47%?

Regarding coverage of Venezuela, television is even worse. Two weeks ago, CNN

International premiered a docu-report titled “The Guardians of Chavez”, during which the international network falsely associated armed groups, criminals, terrorists and paramilitary forces with the Venezuelan government.

On Monday, September 13, just one and a half weeks before the upcoming legislative elections in Venezuela, CNN en Español’s primetime anchor, Patricia Janiot, conducted a live interview with an escaped convict from Venezuela, who just two years earlier had been tried and sentenced for terrorism.

In a clear showing of yellow journalism, Janiot referred to the terrorist fugitive as a “political prisoner” and “student persecuted” by the Chavez government. The escaped convict, Raul Diaz Peña, was sentenced in 2008 after a lengthy trial proving his guilt as one of the material authors of a terrorist attack with C4 explosives against the embassies of Colombia and Spain that took place February 25, 2003 in Caracas.

Diaz Peña escaped from his Venezuelan jail cell on September 5 and after arriving in a commercial airliner at the Miami International Airport, was somehow able to easily enter the US, despite his status as a convicted terrorist and fugitive from justice.

A mere week after his US arrival, CNN broadcast him in prime time.

“How many other students are political prisoners in Venezuela”, Janiot asked of the terrorist. “Were you tortured”, she inquired, with concern in her voice. At the end of the interview, the stellar journalist of the US network wished the fugitive terrorist “good luck”, lauding him for escaping Chavez’s “terrible dictatorship”.

It’s a wonder that an international television network can conduct a live interview with a convicted, fugitive terrorist, and wish him “good luck” in public, without a concern for any kind of consequence. But this type of irony is only possible when it comes to US media treatment of Venezuela.

According to CNN, in the case of Venezuela, terrorists are “political prisoners” and fugitives from justice are “immigrants”.

Two days after CNN’s flagrantly offensive interview with Venezuelan fugitive terrorist Raul Diaz Peña, which openly validated and approved the use of terror in Venezuela, Fox News headlined “Venezuela cancels roundtrip ‘Terror Flight’ to Syria and Iran”.

In the report, which also ran on its website, the US network claimed Venezuela was one

of “the world’s most terror-friendly nations”, along with Syria and Iran.

Regarding a legitimate flight route conducted by a Venezuelan airline, Conviasa, between Caracas-Damascus-Tehran, Fox falsely sustained, “the flight would carry illicit, lethal cargoes -- such as explosives and possibly radioactive materials -- and provide safe passage to terrorists, spies, weapons experts, senior Iranian intelligence operatives and members of both Hezbollah and Hamas”.

The source? “Western intelligence agencies, Venezuelan opposition figures and a former Iran-based spy for the CIA”. Sounds convincing.

The dangerous and intentionally erroneous Fox News report, which attempts to link Venezuela to international terrorism (ironically while CNN welcomes Venezuelan terrorists, Fox accuses the Venezuelan government of terrorism), went on to further accuse the Venezuelan government of facilitating terrorism against the United States: “Reza Kahlili, the pseudonym for an Iranian who the CIA has confirmed once spied for the United States as a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, told FoxNews.com these ‘special flights’ have been ‘instrumental in creating an Iranian dominated worldwide terror network that now reaches the United States.’ He said the flights were used to expand Iran’s efforts to create a base of operations in the Western Hemisphere”.

But right after that false accusation, Fox News discredited its own report, when a prime source admitted he didn’t really have any evidence to prove his claims: “Peter Brookes, a former Defense Department analyst and CIA employee now with the Heritage Foundation, said there was a steady stream of elite Al Quds officers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard who were transported to Venezuela aboard the flight and took up positions in the Latin American country’s intelligence service. ‘We can’t say for sure what is going on, but it is clandestine and secretive’, he said”.

In the final stretch before the September 26 legislative elections, media attacks against Venezuela continue to intensify.

Last week, in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano summed up the media campaign against Venezuela: “There is a process of demonization against Chavez…

It’s scandalous that today, every minute, three million dollars are spent on military affairs. And that requires enemies. In the theater of good and evil, at times those concepts are inter-changeable, as with Saddam Hussein, a saint of the West who was converted into Satan”.

T/ Eva Golinger

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economy

The artillery of ideas

Bank of Venezuela shows positive economic growth In a little over a year since its nationalization, the state-owned Banco de Venezuela has grown in total deposits and has been able to provide more home mortgages for Venezuelans residents

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he announcement was made last Friday by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during an act of socialization of the nation’s public banking system held at Banco de Venezuela’s headquarters in Caracas.

During the event, Chavez delivered certificates of loans and credits to small and medium sized business entrepreneurs as well as tourism credit cards that provide users with interest rates and national travel deals well below those offered by private establishments.

The Venezuelan head of state reported that on September 25th, the bank would allocate 337.5 million bolivars ($78.5 million USD) of its dividends to a fund for social projects to benefit the population.

The publicly owned telecommunications company, CANTV, will also have more than 300 mil-

lion bolivars ($69.8 million) in profits available for social projects and programs, informed the Venezuelan president.

Chavez was accompanied last Friday by Humberto Ortega Diaz, Public Banking Minister and President of Banco de Venezuela.

Ortega Diaz highlighted the advances achieved by the nationalized bank in increasing customers’ access to loans.

“The figures are significant in relation to the granting of credits for different sectors. For ex-

ample, financing for home mortgages has increased by 120%. In June 2009, we had 581 million bolivars ($135 million) in mortgages and in August, we reached 1,282 million bolivars ($298 million)”, Diaz affirmed.

PROTECTING CUSTOMER SAVINGS President Chavez reminded the public of the role that Banco de Venezuela has played, alongside the government’s Deposit Guarantee Fund (Fogade), in the recovery of the savings of nearly

242,000 customers of the now defunct Banco Federal.

Last June, the government was forced to intervene in the private Banco Federal for its repeated violations of banking regulations.

The owner of the Federal Bank, Nelson Mezerhane, fled Venezuela with an alleged 7 billion bolivars ($1.6 billion) of customers’ money.

Mezerhane now resides in Florida. His extradition is currently being requested by the Venezuelan government.

Many of the former clients of Banco Federal have now become customers of Banco de Venezuela, which according to official numbers has seen an increase of nearly 40% in its savings accounts.

“There is not a bank in the country that is safer than Banco de Venezuela. Everyday, Venezuelans trust the Banco de Venezuela more and more with their money”, affirmed President Chavez.

Chavez referred to the government’s intervention to protect customers’ savings, as well as other efforts to regulate the banking sector, as a means of handing fiscal power over to ordinary citizens.

Dismissing opposition claims of a state-dominated economy, the Venezuelan President reaffirmed his commitment to democratize the financial sector by “continuing with the creation of spaces for citizen power, transferring power to the people…What we are doing is contrary to what [the opposition] says and did during their entire time in government. They concentrated all political, economic, state, and military power in a minority, a small group of people”, Chavez said, adding, “those days are over and they will never return”.

T/ Edward Ellis P/ Presidential Press

The Venezuelan economy: Media sources get it wrong, again

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he bulk of the media often gets pulled along for the ride when the US government has a serious political and public relations campaign around foreign policy. But almost nowhere is it so monolithic as with Venezuela. Even in the run-up to the Iraq War, there were a significant number of reporters and editorial writers who didn’t buy the official story. But on Venezuela the media is more like a jury that has twelve people but only one brain.

Since the Venezuelan opposition decided to campaign for the September elections on the issue of Venezuela’s high homicide rate, the international press has been flooded with stories on this theme – some of them highly exaggerated.

The “all bad news, all the time” theme was overwhelmingly dom-

inant even during Venezuela’s record economic expansion, from 2003-2008. The economy grew as never before, poverty was cut by more than half, and there were large gains in employment. Real social spending per person more than tripled, and free health care was expanded to millions of people. You will have to search very hard to find these basic facts presented in a mainstream media article.

For example, in May the UN Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) found that Venezuela had reduced inequality by more than any other country in Latin America from 2002-2008, ending up with the most equal income distribution in the region. This has yet to be mentioned by the major international press.

Venezuela went into recession in 2009, and you can imagine how much more press attention has since been paid to GDP growth than when Venezuela was growing faster than any economy in the hemisphere. Then in January, the government devalued its currency, and the press was forecasting a big upsurge in inflation, to as much as 60% this year. “Stagflation” – recession plus rising inflation – became the new buzzword.

The “out-of-control” inflation didn’t happen – in fact, inflation over the last three months, which is 21 percent at an annualized rate, is considerably lower than before the devaluation. This is yet another indicator that the economists relied upon by major media as sources have limited understanding of the actual functioning of Venezuela’s economy.

Now it looks like Venezuela may have emerged from recession in the second quarter of this year. On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, the economy grew by 5.2% in the second quarter. In June, Morgan Stanley projected that the economy would shrink by 6.2% this year and by 1.2% next year.

Of course Venezuela’s continued growth is not assured – it will depend on the government making a commitment to maintaining high levels of aggregate demand, and keeping it. In that sense its immediate situation is similar to that of the US, the Eurozone, and many other more developed economies whose economic recovery is sluggish and uncertain right now.

Venezuela has adequate foreign exchange reserves, is run-

ning a trade and current account surplus, has low levels of foreign public debt and quite a bit of foreign borrowing capacity if needed. As such, it is extremely unlikely to run up against a foreign exchange shortage. It can therefore use public spending and investment as much as necessary to make sure the economy grows sufficiently to increase employment and living standards.

Whatever happens, we can expect complete coverage of one side of the story from the media.

So keep it in mind: when you are reading the New York Times or listening to NPR on Venezuela, you are getting Fox News. If you want something more balanced, you will have to look for it elsewhere.

T/ Mark Weisbrot

politics

The artillery of ideas

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Venezuela: Winning the war on d ugs M

ore than 46 tons of illegal drugs have been seized by the Venezuelan government in 2010 as the fight against drug trafficking continues to be a top priority for the nation, detailed a report released last Monday by the National Anti-Drug Office (ONA).

The ONA report provides statistics on the seizure of 46,341 tons of illicit substances including more than 27,000 kilos of Marijuana and nearly 19,000 kilos of cocaine.

If average monthly seizures are maintained for the duration of the year, the country will detain 70 tons of illegal drugs, 10 tons more than any other year in its history.

According to the ONA, nearly 7,000 people have been detained for drug trafficking in operations carried out by the National Guard, national police and intelligence agencies.

Of those detained, there were 6,674 Venezuelans and 243 foreigners. Officials attribute the number of seizures and arrests to

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Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Plan, which went into effect in June 2009.

The five-year plan, devised and executed without the interference of foreign interests, lays out a comprehensive strategy to implement national public policies to combat the illegal drug trade affecting Venezuela from neighboring Colombia.

Cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was

suspended in 2005 after the Venezuelan government accused it of meddling in the nation’s affairs outside the purview of the fight against drugs. Evidence of DEA espionage and sabotage of Venezuela’s counter-narcotics efforts was also discovered.

As a result, the US has placed the South American nation on its annual list of countries that do not collaborate with efforts to combat drug trafficking since 2005.

US/COLOMBIA AT FAULT FOR DRUG TRADE Government officials in Venezuela argue that their country is the victim of a drug trade tied directly to the US – the biggest market for illegal substances in the world.

Likewise, Colombia, the world’s largest producer of illegal drugs, shares a 1,400-mile (2,250 km) border with Venezuela.

Indeed, the ONA report demonstrates that 30% of all drug seizures in Venezuela in 2010 have taken place in the states of Tachira and Zulia, both of which border Colombia.

ONA’s director, Nestor Reverol, emphasized Venezuela’s progress in the fight against illicit substances during a workshop given to the armed forces on Monday.

The 4-day event was product of Venezuela’s collaboration with the military police of the Netherlands to combat the transport of illegal substances through intraorganic means, otherwise known as mules.

Refusing to recognize any list emanating from the US government, Reverol declared that Venezuela’s success speaks for itself.

“Our achievements demonstrate Venezuela’s cooperation in the international arena and we reject any forthcoming report from the government of the United States”.

In addition to seizures, the Venezuela government has also prioritized preventive measures, providing drug prevention training for 140,000 people around the country.

According to Reverol, the government now possesses 10 incineration centers, making it one of the countries with the greatest capacities to destroy illicit drugs.

Eight drug labs have also been destroyed in 2010 and more than 11 tons of chemicals have been seized, reported ONA’s president.

T/ Edward Ellis P/ Agencies

Venezuela mourns deaths of important revolutionaries

wo long-time Venezuelan revolutionary figures were rembered as legends last week after dying in separate but equally tragic circumstances.

The Governor of the state of Guarico, 53-year-old Willian Lara, was killed in a car accident on Friday evening. On Saturday, the editor of the pro-government daily newspaper, Diario Vea, Guillermo Garcia Ponce, died from cancer-related complications. He was 84.

Lara was killed in a tragic car accident on Friday, September 10, after heavy rains caused his vehicle to veer off the road and plunge into the Paya River. Although the driver survived and tried to rescue Lara, strong river currents pulled him in. His body was recovered the following morning after rescue efforts searched from him throughout the night.

Lara started his political life in the Venezuelan Communist Party and went on to be a key strategist and organizer in the Bolivarian Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR) - the party that won the presidency for President Hugo Chavez in 1998.

Guillermo García Ponce

Willian Lara

He was President of Venezuela’s National Assembly from 2000 to 2002, and was well known for his strong defense of the Constitution during the April 2002 coup d’etat that briefly toppled President Chavez.

Lara then served as Minister for Communication until his election as Guarico’s governor in 2008.

He was viewed as a tireless, hardworking and committed revolutionary by all those who worked with him.

At the funeral services on Saturday, President Chavez gave

Lara Venezuela’s highest honor (post-mortem), “The Order of the Liberator”, declaring, “Willian Lara’s left us, damn! He was a great Venezuelan and a true revolutionary. Let’s honor his memory and continue the battle. We’ll be victorious!”

HISTORICAL FIGHTER FOR JUSTICE Guillermo Garcia Ponce also passed away on September 11th.

He was a former long-time communist party member and a crucial leader of a group named

Junta Patriotica formed in 1956 to fight against the dictatorship of Marco Perez Jimenez. The Junta was instrumental in the fall of Perez Jimenez in 1958 and the start of Venezuela’s democracy.

But repression didn’t end after Perez Jimenez’s overthrow, and Garcia Ponce continued the armed struggle. He played a role in the El Carupanazo y El Porteñazo insurrections of 1962 during the government of President Romulo Betancourt. The Venezuelan Communist Party, one of the largest in Latin America, was consid-

ered illegal by the government at this time.

Garcia Ponce famously broke out of the San Carlos jail in 1967 after he had been imprisoned for Communist party membership.

Like Lara, Garcia Ponce went on to become a key figure in Chavez’s Bolivarian movement before founding his newspaper, Diario Vea, in 2003.

At a ceremony honoring Garcia Ponce on Monday at the National Assembly, President Chavez exclaimed, “Let’s continue his example of critical thinking. A combative comrade, warrior, commander, man of arms, an armed civilian, and a soldier in battle”.

“We are saying farewell physically to whom we call the ‘first to take the path’, the men that got off their horses, but continued on with the fight. Here they are among us, the survivors of that long century that was the XX”, declared the Venezuelan President, also awarding Garcia Ponce with the high honor of “The Order of the Liberator” (post-mortem).

T/ Steven Mather

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social justice

The artillery of ideas

Chavez: Property and land rights guaranteed for all Six thousand families will soon be the legal owners of the land upon which they have constructed their homes in the barrio of Petare, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced last Friday, during a visit to the largest low-income neighborhood in metropolitan Caracas

will offer a savings of approximately 25%.

Chavez announced on Friday that a shipment of 20,000 appliances would be arriving shortly from China as part of the first lot of 300,000 units to be sold.

The agreement that has facilitated the arrival of the appliances was signed last May and created a joint venture between Haier and the state-owned Venezuelan Corporation of Medium Industry.

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he land titles, which make up a total of 21.4 hectares (52 acres), were delivered by President Chavez to thirteen community councils – grassroots neighborhood organizations – in the sector Juan Felix Ribas of Petare.

The event represents an advance of the Chavez government’s initiative to democratize urban landholdings and provide residents with property rights to their informally constructed homes.

The community councils will be in charge of distributing the titles to the lower class families who have built their houses on the hillsides that flank the eastern side of Caracas.

Many Petare residents, who have lived precariously without the legal protection of ownership of their homes, saw the granting of the titles on Friday as the end to a long struggle for recognition.

“For 8 years, since we created an Urban Land Committee, we have been taking all necessary steps so each family could count on having title to their home”, explained Deisy Garcia, spokesperson for one of the community council’s benefiting from the program. “It’s for this reason that today, thanks to Chavez’s government, we’ve been able to secure this most important achievement”, she added.

Damaso Alvarez, a Petare resident and community organizer, also expressed his satisfaction with the government’s decision and called upon fellow residents to continue organizing.

“A historic dream is being fulfilled” he exclaimed. “I invite all my comrades from the land committee, who have also been in this struggle for years, to continue forward so that you can attain this kind of victory”, Alvarez said.

During the event, President Chavez emphasized the delivery

of land titles needs to be accompanied by further community projects to improve the quality of life for residents.

“Wherever we deliver land titles, there should be a link to habitat projects, such as housing, water, electricity and programs to ensure local production and development. It’s not just the title, but the rehabilitation of spaces”, said the Venezuelan President.

LINKING URBAN WITH RURAL Venezuela, with more than 80% of its population living in cities, is one of the most urbanized countries in Latin America.

Barrios such as Petare are in many ways the product of a massive rural exodus that began in the nation in the early 1900s as a result of the booming oil industry.

Farmers who once worked in the countryside planting and harvesting crops such as coffee and cocoa, moved to the city in search of a better life.

The country was thus converted into a net importer of food as oil rents created a disincentive to maintaining agricultural production.

In delivering the land titles in Petare on Friday, Chavez expressed his desire to reverse this trend by linking the countryside with the city through the granting of farmlands to urban residents.

“I want to go beyond urban lands.

I want to grant rural lands to urban residents so they can go and work the land and have the credits, technology, and machinery to produce and process food products”, ex-

plained the Venezuelan President.

“In Venezuela, there’s sufficient land so that everyone can work”, he added.

Chavez directed his Vice President, Elias Jaua, as well as Land and Agriculture Minister, Juan Carlos Loyo, to accelerate the implementation of the urban-rural plan and to focus greater attention on fostering this link.

“I’m asking you to start looking for lands”, Chavez said to Minister Loyo, “so that titles for a few acres can be granted [to the people] and they can begin to plant”.

PRIVATE PROPERTY GUARANTEED For much of his term in office, Chavez has been accused of attacking private property by the nation’s conservative opposition.

The Venezuelan President dismissed these claims on Friday, stating that the granting of land titles to urban residents is evidence the Venezuelan government is strengthening citizens’ rights to private property.

“The government is converting the people into property owners”, Chavez stated, pointing out that Venezuela is not replicating older communist models of social organization.

Venezuela’s “socialism isn’t statism”, he affirmed. “Look at what happened in the USSR. We’re not copying the Soviet model, or marxism-leninism. That would lead us directly to disaster…We’re creating our own socialism”.

Denying opposition claims that Venezuela is heading down the

path of the Soviet Union, Chavez attributed such falsehoods to election year fear mongering.

“They invent all kinds of things”, he admonished. “They’re playing the communist card to try to scare the people”.

APPLIANCES FOR THE PEOPLE While in Petare, Chavez also reported on the arrival of a new line of domestic appliances to be marketed and sold through a state-managed commercial network, under the auspices of the social program known as, “My Well-Equipped Home (Mi Casa Bien Equipada)”.

The program is the result of an agreement between Venezuela and the Chinese company, Haier, and allows the government to offer credit to the public to purchase appliances at affordable prices while cracking down on the speculation characteristic of private sector vendors.

“With this program, people will be able to buy their washing machines, their refrigerators and air conditioners at a good price. All of the appliances are energy savers and will be financed by state institutions”, President Chavez explained.

In comparison with private companies, the savings will reach as much as 60% on certain products such as air conditioners.

Washing machines will be made available to the population at a price 40% less than private vendors, and water heaters nearly 50% cheaper.

Gas stoves and refrigerators

GOOD LIVING CARDS Chavez also revealed on Friday a final version of a new credit card being offered by the government for the purchase of products from state-run grocery stores and for national tourism.

Two versions of The Good Living Card (Cedula de Buen Vivir) will be offered to public employees: one which allows public sector employees to buy on credit from the government’s Bicentennial Food Stores, and the other for the purchase of national tourism packages.

Members of the opposition have criticized the initiative as a “rationing card” while others have compared it to a proposal made by former opposition presidential candidate Manuel Rosales, who during his election campaign in 2006 offered Venezuelan citizens a debit card linked directly to the income of the state oil company, PDVSA. Chavez dismissed the criticisms out of hand, stating that the opposition “is going crazy, attacking and attacking with the theme of communism, but [The Good Living Card] isn’t about rationing”.

The Minister of Public Banking earlier this month described the card as the same as any other credit card offered by private retail establishments.

If other private outlets can use them, the minister asked, “Why can’t our [state-owned] Bicentennial network have a credit card so customers can have easier access to purchase items?”

Ortega also mentioned the interest rate on the government card, although not giving specifics, would be much lower than rates in the private sector.

The Good Living Card is optional and will not be required for any purchases made at state-run markets.

T/ Edward Ellis P/ Presidential Press

energy

The artillery of ideas

7

No 29 • Friday, September 17th, 2010 | |

Venezuelan Revolution strengthened role of OPEC T

he arrival of the Bolivarian Revolution, and along with it, a new vision of Venezuela’s oil policies, allowed for the redesigning of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) objectives to strengthen inter-continental integration.

President of the Permanent Committee on Economic Development of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Mario Isea, explained on Tuesday that Venezuelan oil policies have enabled OPEC to guarantee energy resources to the world population.

“Under the leadership of President Chavez, the Organization is now talking about integration, cooperation, and using energy as a tool to create a new method of interaction between countries, exchanging energy for commerce and technology”, he explained.

Venezuelan economic policies were responsible for regaining confidence in OPEC and for restoring the organization, enabling it to guarantee hydrocarbon security worldwide, stated Isea.

“Venezuela’s actions returned confidence to OPEC’s members”, he added, referring to “fulfilling production cuts with discipline, increasing the range of oil prices, and restoring internal relations that were debilitated due to antiOPEC actions of international capitalism”.

I

n the framework of the 50th anniversary of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), remembering its history helps to understand current military and diplomatic conflicts.

One of the most important historical events affecting the geopolitical fight for oil was when the “seven sisters”, seven anglo-US oil companies, signed the “Red Line” and “Achnacarry” agreements in 1928, both to control not only the oil price but the entire world supply. That ambitious objective later led to US support for the 1953 coup d’etat that overthrew Iranian President Mohammad Mossadeq, after he committed the “crime” of nationalizing Iranian oil. His successor, Shah Rheza Palevi, who ruled by cruel dictatorship, was more aligned to western interests.

In September 2000, Caracas hosted OPEC’s World Summit during its 40th anniversary, during which President Chavez proposed the installation of a mechanism to adjust oil prices.

All member countries accepted, oil prices rose substantially, and the measure allowed for stabilization in the hydrocarbons market.

A FAIR PRICE FOR OIL Rafael Ramirez, President of Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), announced on Tuesday his belief that oil should be at $100 dollars per barrel.

“An oil barrel at $100 is fair because it would allow for just compensation of our natural resource and provide payment

for the significant investment that producing countries make to keep up our production capacities.

After a conference held in Caracas celebrating OPEC’s 50th anniversary this week, Ramirez explained the necessity to cautiously evaluate factors in the world’s oil market before fixing a price within the organization.

“We know oil prices are being affected by elements that do not necessarily belong to the oil market; that is to say, financial speculation, the weakness of the dollar - all these elements are closely linked to the perception of economic problems, most of all in the US economy and the Eurozone. Therefore, we take into account these factors before making a decision”, he said.

The Venezuelan Oil Minister affirmed that oil prices have been recovering after a collapse. Today, “we have a floor in oil prices around $70 per barrel”.

He recalled that in 2008, OPEC’s oil barrel reached $140 and then fell suddenly to $35 dollars at the beginning of 2009.

Ramirez underscored the decision made by OPEC to cut production until a balance was reached in the market.

“OPEC made a very important decision in December 2008 by cutting 4.5 million barrels of its production. This made the recovery of oil prices possible”, commented Ramirez.

OPEC was founded in 1960

by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Today, its 12 members also include Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

T/ Venezuelan News Agency

OPEC: 50 years of sovereignty Similar events occur in Latin America when governments attempt to control oil revenues and resources. The sustained and controversial British presence on the Malvines Islands (Falkland Islands), Southern Georgias and Sandwich Islands, historical territories of Argentina, appears related to oil resources in the area.

In Venezuela, Presidents Medina Angarita and Romulo Gallegos (the former who implemented the oil reform of 1943 and the latter, the law of 1948 guaranteeing Venezuela 50% participation in the oil industry), were both overthrown by internal groups supported by US interests.

BIRTH OF OPEC In 1960, a brilliant Venezuelan Minister of Energy, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso, came up with the

idea to create an “instrument to defend the prices and remedy the economic losses of oil production”. That year, in Badgad, Iraq, this idea blossomed into a platform for defending the interests of oil-producing countries: OPEC. Since then, OPEC has served to coordinate efforts and policies between developing, oil-producing nations, permitting them to have certain power of negotiation with industrialized countries. Furthermore, OPEC has played a key role in maintaining quotas of production, guaranteeing the stability of markets and supporting its members in moments of crisis, such as the Yom Kippur war in 1973 and the oil strike in Venezuela in 2002.

Nonetheless, not all has changed since OPEC’s creation.

Transnational oil companies, backed by the US, UK and other European nations, still have a lot of power. In fact, four of the governments that participated in the 40th anniversary of OPEC, which took place during the II OPEC’s World Summit, in Caracas, Venezuela in 2000, have been targeted by foreign aggressions: the coup d’etat and oil strike against President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (2002); US invasion in Iraq (2003); “ethnic violence” in the Delta Region in Nigeria (2009); and the increasing hostilities against Iran (2009-2010).

At that meeting in 2000, OPEC nations agreed to implement a band of prices between $22-28 per barrel at a time when oil prices were merely $7 per barrel. Obviously, world powers were unhappy with this

decision. Two decades before, US President Ronald Reagan had declared he would “bring OPEC to its knees”, indicating the clear disdain powerful nations held for the exercise of sovereignty pursued by oilproducing countries.

Finally, the other “crime” of OPEC nations has been to recently support a proposal to diversify the currency used in OPEC’s transactions, including Venezuela’s idea to create a new coin called “The Petro”. Since its foundation, oil prices have been regulated by the US dollar.

As these oil-producing nations increase their sovereignty, they continue remembering the objective of Reagan to bring OPEC to its knees.

T/ Xoan Noya

FRIDAY  September 17th, 2010  No. 29 Bs. 1  Caracas

ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas

A publication of the Fundacion Correo del Orinoco Editor-in-Chief | Eva Golinger • Graphic Design | Arturo Cazal, Pablo Valduciel L., Alexander Uzcátegui, Jameson Jiménez • Press | Fundación Imprenta de la Cultura

Opinion

E

Flying the flag, faking the news

dward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, is said to have invented modern propaganda. During the first World War, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe.

In his book, Propaganda, published in 1928, Bernays wrote the “intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses was an important element in democratic society” and the manipulators “constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country”. Instead of propaganda, he coined the euphemism “public relations”.

The American tobacco industry hired Bernays to convince women they should smoke in public. By associating smoking with women’s liberation, he made cigarettes “torches of freedom”. In 1954, he conjured a communist menace in Guatemala as an excuse for overthrowing the democratically-elected government, whose social reforms were threatening the United Fruit company’s monopoly of the banana trade. He called it “liberation”.

Bernays was no rabid right-winger. He was an elitist liberal who believed “engineering public consent” was for the greater good. This was achieved by the creation of “false realities” which then became “news events”. Here are examples of how it is done these days: False reality: The last US combat troops have left Iraq “as promised, on schedule”, according to President Barack Obama. TV screens have filled with cinematic images of the “last US soldiers” silhouetted against the dawn light, crossing the border into Kuwait.

Fact: They are still there. At least 50,000 troops will continue to operate from 94 bases.

American air assaults are unchanged, as are special forces’ assassinations. The number of “military contractors” is currently 100,000 and rising. Most Iraqi oil is now under direct foreign control.

False reality: BBC presenters and reporters have described the departing US troops as a “sort of victorious army” that has achieved “a remarkable change in [Iraq’s] fortunes”.

Their commander, General David Petraeus, is a “celebrity”, “charming”, “savvy” and “remarkable”.

Fact: There is no victory of any sort. There is a catastrophic disaster; and attempts to present it as otherwise are a model of Bernays’ campaign to “re-brand” the slaughter of the first World War as “necessary” and “noble”.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan, running for presi-

dent, re-branded the government’s chief Two classified documents invasion of Vietnam, scientific adviser, as recently released by Wikileaks revealed in a Freedom in which up to three million people died, of Information search. express the CIA’s concern as a “noble cause”, a This figure is rarely that the populations theme taken up enthureported or presented of European countries, which siastically by Hollywoto “charming” and od. Today’s Iraq war oppose their governments’ war “savvy” American gemovies have a similar nerals. Neither is the policies, are not succumbing purging theme: the indispossession of four to the usual propaganda spun million Iraqis, the malvader as both idealist and victim. nourishment of most through the media False reality: It is not Iraqi children, the epiknown how many Irademic of mental illness qis have died. They are “countless” or maybe and the poisoning of the environment. “in the tens of thousands”.

False reality: The British economy has a deFact: As a direct consequence of the Anglo- ficit of billions that must be reduced with cuts American led invasion, a million Iraqis have in public services and regressive taxation, in a died. This figure from Opinion Research Bu- spirit of “we’re all in this together”. siness is based on peer-reviewed research led Fact: We are not in this together. What is

by Johns Hopkins University in Washington remarkable about this public relations triumDC, whose methods were secretly affirmed ph is that only 18 months ago the diametric as “best practice” and “robust” by the Blair opposite filled TV screens and front pages.

Then, in a state of shock, truth was unavoidable, if briefly. The Wall Street and City of London financiers’ trough was on full view for the first time, along with the venality of once celebrated snouts. Billions in public money went to inept and crooked organizations known as banks, which were spared debt liability by their Labour government sponsors.

Within a year, record profits and personal bonuses were posted, and state and media propaganda had recovered its equilibrium.

Suddenly, the “black hole” was no longer the responsibility of the banks, whose debt is to be paid by those not in any way responsible: the public. The received media wisdom of this “necessity” is now a chorus, from the BBC to the Sun. A masterstroke, Bernays would surely say.

False reality: The former government minister Ed Miliband offers a “genuine alternative” as leader of the British Labour Party.

Fact: Miliband, like his brother David, the former foreign secretary, and almost all those standing for the Labour leadership, is immersed in the effluent of New Labour.

As a New Labour MP and minister, he did not refuse to serve under Blair or speak out against Labour’s persistent warmongering.

He now calls the invasion of Iraq a “profound mistake”. Calling it a mistake insults the memory and the dead. It was a crime, of which the evidence is voluminous. He has nothing new to say about the other colonial wars, none of them mistakes. Neither has he demanded basic social justice: that those who caused the recession clear up the mess and that Britain’s fabulously rich corporate minority be seriously taxed, starting with Rupert Murdoch.

Of course, the good news is that false realities often fail when the public trusts its own critical intelligence, not the media. Two classified documents recently released by Wikileaks express the CIA’s concern that the populations of European countries, which oppose their governments’ war policies, are not succumbing to the usual propaganda spun through the media.

For the rulers of the world, this is a conundrum, because their unaccountable power rests on the false reality that no popular resistance works. And it does.

John Pilger John Pilger is a world-renowned journalist, author and documentary filmmaker from Australia and winner of the prestigous Sophie Prize for ‘30 years of exposing injustice and promoting human rights’.